As the NBA regular season draws to a close, many teams still on the brink of the playoffs are still fighting hard to catch the final train of the playoffs. However, some teams that still had a chance to make the playoffs passed up the rare opportunity and surrendered early. For example, the Western Conference powerhouse Mavericks, who deliberately gave up the opportunity to make the playoffs caused dissatisfaction in the league, and the NBA will intervene to investigate whether they have played match-fixing.
Recently, in order to get the 10 picks in the first round of this year, the Lone Rangers decided to abandon the remaining games, deliberately hiding the main players or letting the core players symbolically play. Among them, the Lone Rangers exposed their "misappropriate" behavior in the home game against the Bulls, allowing Irving to rest and Doncic to play only symbolically. In the end, the Lone Rangers lost the game without any surprise. In this regard, the outside world believes that the Lone Ranger's game is too ugly, and their practice is like playing match-fixing and not being responsible to the fans and spectators.
Due to fan pressure, the league also began to investigate the improper behavior and motives behind the Lone Ranger's game. It is worth noting that coach Kidd has previously expressed his belief in winning two consecutive games to reach the play-offs, and they originally wanted to play but had to obey the organization, and the plan was changed at short notice. There is no doubt that coach Kidd still wants his team to get a ticket to the playoffs, but the team's management has made the decision to abandon this season. Of course, Kidd's words also gave the league to investigate the Lone Ranger, and the team could be fined hefty.
After another loss to the Bulls, the Mavericks are completely out of the play-offs, but they may get a first-round 10 pick in return. It has to be mentioned that Lone Ranger owner Mark Cuban was fined as much as $600,000 by the league in 2018 for publicly admitting that the team was rotten.